Phantasmagoric
by Frosty Hands
Summary: Shouichi Shinkawa, better known as Red-eyed XaXa has been caught and arrested for the murders revolving around the Death Gun incident. Sent to a psychiatric hospital, he attempts to make peace with his past crimes in order to reintegrate with society.
1. Chapter 1: Letters

A droning buzz hummed throughout the blank, bleached white room, completely empty save a few paperback books and a plexiglass touch screen monitor attached to the wall.

"Tick Tick", I mutter.

A few seconds later, the fluorescent lights flicker twice. _Tick tick._ Right on cue, as always.

How long has it been now? A few days? A few weeks? Months? Is it daytime? Or perhaps nighttime? My sense of time has dulled during my stay in this dreary room. Perhaps they wish to distort my sense of time to match my sense of reality. Heh. I can't believe they actually believed that stupid lie. That I could no longer separate my sense of reality from the virtual world. I guess being a SAO survivor has its perks. Makes it easy to get away with murder as long as I can pin the blame on the "trauma" I received from the SAO incident. Well, perhaps going to jail wouldn't have been so bad. At least compared to being stuck in a psych ward. I'm sure this place violates all sorts of human rights. No windows. No social interaction. No control over when I can eat or sleep. Haha. Look at that. _Me_ , talking about human rights. Aren't I just full of shit?

Sometimes, a physician will come visit my room. _Click_. The door would open. _Clack_. He would restrain me so I don't bite his face off or something. The physician only asks me questions relating to my health.

"Did you take any drugs in the past?" he asked.

"Only my prescribed pills," I would respond.

"Does your family have a record of mental health?"

"Not that I know of."

"Any records of physical health?"

"No, I'm the only one in my family with a weak constitution."

Those sort of questions. Quite boring, really.

He scribbles down some notes on his clipboard and finishes taking my vitals- leaving as quickly as he came. _Click_. The door closes.

* * *

If you had to ask, I much prefer the psychologist. At least he tries to have a conversation with me. Despite all the probing, he'd seem like an all right kind of guy, but then again, that's his job.

 _Click_. The door opens again. The psychologist positions a chair, sitting himself next to me-who is still restrained, mind you.

"Shinkawa-kun, how are you feeling today?"

"About the same, Doctor."

"Have you've been doing the activities I recommended?"

I shrugged. I wrote a little bit, but most of my efforts were half-assed and incomplete.

"Shinkawa-kun," he looked at me as sternly as a middle-aged man could. He looked a little bit like my father, if you squint a little. "We've talked about this. We can't let you out until you get better. This treatment isn't supposed to cure you, but it is suppose to act as a stepping stone. I can't force you to do it, but I do want to see you progress so we can get you out of here quicker. You're still very young."

I sneer at the back of my mind. What kind of life could I live out there? Nineteen and still haven't finished high school. A body so fragile, that I would lose a one-on-one fight with my little brother. The three friends I actually have are either in hiding, didn't really care about my predicament, or is off to college in another country. With my luck, I'll probably croak before I reach thirty.

"Well, I see that you have wrote a bit," he says as he turns on the screen the computer mounted on the wall, gliding his finger across the screen.

The wall-mounted computer was designed to have as little functions as possible. No internet, no games, no media outlets of any sort. The only thing I could do was use a word processor to write out my thoughts and feelings, since the facility was afraid that I would try to kill somebody or commit suicide with a pen. To be fair, I probably would. It's incredibly boring here. I already read the two books in this sparse room countless of times. I've been bored to tears these past few months and eventually began that stupid project. I only really finish a paragraph or so before I get frustrated or bored and quit.

The psychologist pulls up one of my "letters" I was supposed to write to somebody I knew. It could have been somebody I trusted, somebody I loved. Hell, it could have been somebody I hated if that's what'll give me the most catharsis.

"This one is addressed to your parents," he began to read my little essay,

"Dear Mother and Father,

Did you ever expect your oldest, frail son to be a murderer? Congratulations for raising a psychopath, I hope you're proud of yourself. Abandoning me must have been the smartest decision of your life. I'm glad they took Kyouji away from you two as well. You two won't be able to mess him up like you did to me."

Ugh. Hearing him read it out loud makes it sound so lame. But as lame as it sounds, they are my true feelings. Resentment, anger, blame. Growing up, I felt like I was only valued as an heir to the hospital. Once they figured out that I couldn't cut it, they dumped me aside and focused on Kyouji instead. Honestly though, I don't really care anymore. I had a lot of time to think these past few months. To reflect, I suppose.

If I were in their situation, I probably wouldn't have known what to do. Casting me off to my own apartment and giving me a generous allowance was the best thing they could do to support me. Thinking back on it, I suppose they cared in their own way, even if they thought of me as a lost cause.

"How does hearing that out loud make you feel?" he asks me.

"Embarrassed." I bluntly responded, "I didn't think it'd sound so whiny."

"Do you still feel that way?"

"What? Being angry at my parents?" I chuckled, "No. Not anymore. I still hold some resentment, but I understand their reasons."

"I see. That's good to hear. Here's a letter addressed to your brother. Might I read this aloud?"

"It's not like I can physically stop you."

"Very well then. But if you want me to stop at any time, please tell me so," he smiles and nods at me.

...Shouldn't you have asked that in the beginning? Whatever.

"Kyouji-

It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself for my mistakes. Sorry I got you involved in this. I knew you were mad at XeXeeD. I knew you were being pressured by dad to take over the family hospital. I manipulated you into doing this with me. It was never your fault. It was mine."

I remember writing this because I knew it would eventually be read by somebody else. If I could do one good thing, I would like my little brother to go free. I might be a piece of shit, but he still has a future. Kyouji was one of the two people to stand by me during the SAO incident. He never gave up that I would wake up one day. He thought I was a hero for surviving. After all, I framed the stories I've told him to make me look like the hero-despite the fact that I was killing for fun. Since his false worship of me was based on lies, I might as well do something good and tell the truth about the Death Gun incident. Haha. Death Gun. It's such a stupid name now that I think about it.

"You seem to really care about your little brother."

"I do."

"But you got him involved in this, despite that?"

"I regret it."

"Fair enough answer," the man raises an eyebrow, looking at the last letter I wrote. Huh. I don't even remember writing this one.

"This one is labeled, 'To: Rin-chan'. Is she a friend?"

My mouth gets dry. I began to remember. It was an incredibly sappy and stupid letter that ended up five pages long-compared to the few sentences wrote to my family members. I remember writing it on a particularly hard and lonely day during the first few months, when the feeling of isolation reached its peak.

"Y-yeah." I stuttered a bit, but quickly regained my composure.

"Girlfriend?"

"Heh, I wish," I mumbled.

We were childhood friends. Well, it was more like she was my only friend until I met the guys in Laughing Coffin. Her mother was a single parent and worked as a nurse at my family's hospital. Rin would often spend her days after school in the waiting room, waiting for the end of her mother's shift. We met under convenient circumstances, as I was hospitalized for months when I was ten years old. My parents didn't want me to end up socially inept. Using their position as her boss, they specifically requested that Rin Yukimura would be my playmate. The rest was history.

I think I began to grow a crush on her at the end of middle school. It was mostly because she started to 'develop' into a woman. By which I mean she had a nice body. T and A, the works. Hell, I'm a teenager. It's not like this situation is abnormal for a guy my age.

I eventually fell in love with her for real, once we began to get closer. We were each other's best friends, as far as I know. Hmph. I never had the nerve to ask her out, so I never knew if she had felt the same way. Heh. Not that I have much redeeming qualities-aside from being incredibly well off. Rin isn't a gold-digging kind of girl anyway. She's actually nice. Unlike me. It makes me wonder if she hates me now that the incident has probably become public. The anti-social, misanthrope me. I wouldn't blame her or anybody else. After all, who wouldn't hate a serial killer? We're the scums of society.

"May I read the letter?" he asks me.

"I'd prefer if you didn't."

I think I would turn red from a live reading. Half the letter is asking if she could forgive me for killing people and how I could make it up for disappointing her. The other half is me devolving into a blubbering, sentimental mess. Telling her how I always felt about her. That if she forgave me, I would try to become a better person. That we could start a family and live a good life together. All of that crap. It's as embarrassingly honest and awkward as a nineteen year old with no social skills can get. So no, I don't want anybody to read that letter.

"Alright. We can do this another day," the psychologist closes the file and shuts down the computer, "I felt like we made a lot of progress today, Shinkawa-kun."

"You think?" I ask halfheartedly. I guess some part of me wanted to get better. I do miss eating good food and being able to do other things aside from sleeping. I miss my little brother and my Rin. I want to spend more time with them if I could. But I know I also did something pretty fucked up. It'll probably be years before I can get out. I wouldn't hold my breath.

"Of course. Every single step we make counts. One step, or one thousand steps. Every bit of progress matters," he smiles and releases the restraints on my arms and legs. He extends his hand out. I reach out and give him a firm handshake, "I'll see you next week, Shinkawa-kun."

"Yeah. See you next week."

 _Click_. The door slams shut.


	2. Chapter 2: Memories

_Clack_. My eyes popped open. Somebody's in my room. The lights are still off, but I can make a faint outline from the light that seeped through the cracks of the door. I lie perfectly still, quietly grabbing a book with as little movement as possible. It won't hurt whoever's here, but it can probably stun them if I chuck it hard enough.

"Shinkawa Shouichi," a voice echoes in the room, "Wake up, it's time for your medication."

Ugh. It's the physician.

"Isn't it a bit early for this?" I asked innocuously.

"Maybe for you," he says dryly, "It's 2 PM right now."

Huh. Wow. The people here really screwed up my internal clock. It honestly felt like 6 in the morning. Heh, wonder how long that's going to take to fix once I get out? If I get out.

"I'm going to turn on the lights. You should prepare yourself."

The fluorescent, white light floods the room. As the light bounces off the walls, I feel my eyes strain from adjustment. Why they decided to make the room lit with a 150 watt light bulb, I'll never know. It's a living quarters, not a goddamned construction site. Whatever. In a few seconds, the blur begins to fade away. The silhouette of the figure becomes the physician, standing right in front of me with a cart full of medical tools.

"I heard you were made some progress with Doctor Minamoto," he says, as he preps the pills and a needle while two large guys pin me down, "That's good. The more you comply, the quicker we can get you out of here."

"Yeah."

Heh. You say that, yet you still think you need these grunts to keep me from tearing into your face. I'm an average sized guy with a rail thin build and anemia. It's not like I can actually hurt you.

I feel the needle piercing my skin, drawing my blood into a small, clear pouch. It's something about seeing my own blood that makes me tense up with excitement. It's a bit cool, seeing actual blood. I try to imagine how it would look like if the bag fell onto the floor, the blood splattering everywhere-staining this pure, white room crimson.

When I was playing SAO or even GGO, there wasn't any blood animation. Sure, parts of the body would turn red, but it doesn't drip from the wound like blood does. I wonder how much more fun the games could have been if they had a blood animation feature? I wonder how much blood I would have drawn if you count all the ways I killed those people.

Ugh. Wait. I'm not supposed to be thinking like this. At least not now. I'm supposed to 'become' a better person so I can get out of this place.

"All right. I'm going to run some tests on this blood sample, but for now, I need you to take your medication." The doctor puts away the pathetically small amount of blood into what seems to be a cooler. Part of me wished I was actually given the opportunity to study medicine so I know what that thing is called. Well. It looks like a cooler, so let's just call it that.

I stare at the pills put into a small bowl. Most of the pills were vitamins, mainly iron supplements. Don't want me fainting if I over-exert myself, after all. I grab the pills, shoveling them down my mouth. I take chug from a cup of water and swallow hard, feeling the lumpy tablets going down my throat. Gross. One of the capsules melted part way and touched my tongue. I hide my disgust as I wash the extremely bitter taste down with the rest of the water. I place the empty cup back onto the cart to signal that I was finished.

"Thank you for your cooperation. Hopefully, I will be able to get the test results within two weeks. After that, I can diagnose any chemical imbalances in your body and prescribe you some medication."

The physician is a lot more chatty today than usual. I wonder why.

I hear the door slamming shut.

* * *

"It's nice to see you again, Shinkawa-kun," Dr. Minamoto brought a new chair to sit on today. Looks comfy. Black leather, padded. One of those fancy, rolling office chairs. It reminds me somewhat of my old gaming chair, back when I used to play games on the computer. Before the NerveGear.

I feel like this is going to be a long talk and sit myself down on my sparse bed. Surprisingly, I wasn't restrained today. I could still see two figures standing outside the closed door, so I know they don't completely trust me yet, but not having my hands and legs tied isn't bad.

"Nice to see you too, Doctor." I go through the formalities.

"How are you feeling today, Shinkawa-kun?"

"A bit nicer today."

Dr. Minamoto pauses for a second and scribbles something on his clipboard before looking back up to me.

"Is there any particular reason you're feeling good today?"

"Not really. Well, Doctor Amada talked a lot more today. There's that I guess. I'm also not tied up. That's a nice change."

"I see," he scribbles something down again, "So, do you like how he and I treat you as of now?"

"I guess," I shrugged, "Can we talk about something else? I don't really want to go into detail on the differences."

Honestly, I do feel better today because the physician was nicer today. It was a good change of pace, I suppose, but if you expect me to have a ten minute conversation about it without me snoring my head off, you're better off winning the lottery.

"That's fine. Is there anything you want to talk about?"

I shrugged. Not much to talk about, Doc.

"Well, why don't we continue where we left off last time?" He flipped through his notes, "Ah yes. You mentioned a friend by the name of Rin. Care to tell me about her?"

I hesitated. I don't really like sharing my personal history with others, especially one as intimate as this one.

"You don't have to be afraid. Everything you say will be confidential. Not a word will escape this room."

I don't really buy into the whole, 'confidentiality' thing. The moment he gets a court order, confidentiality goes right out the door. But it's not like I have anything to lose- aside from my dignity.

"Rin... is my best friend. We met each other when I was ten. We've been friends ever since. Spent almost all of our free time together." I kept it as brief as I could. I could feel my heart pounding, but I kept a straight face.

"Was she involved in that Sword Art game with you?"

"No. She didn't have a NerveGear." I ponder what would have happened if she could afford one. Would I still be the same person I am now? Would I still be the same, sadistic asshole I am now? Probably yes. I've always had issues with society's view on morality. Hell, I did some illegal, perverted things even long before I even played SAO. What would her being trapped in a death game with me would have changed? Aside from me potentially losing my only friend if I had joined Laughing Coffin? I rather not think of it. "Thank goodness," I mutter.

"You really seem to care about her."

"Yeah. She and Kyouji were the only people that really cared about me. _Especially_ during the SAO incident. Kyouji told me she would visit my family's hospital every day after school- to see if I woke up. ...It seemed like Kyouji and her were the only ones who cared if I woke up or not."

"Do you think your parents don't care?"

Damn. I spoke too much. I know lips get loose when you're talking to a therapist, but I didn't think I slip up that easily.

"Ha. As if. If they cared from the beginning, they wouldn't have given up on me. They would have scolded me for dropping out of high school. They wouldn't have shifted all the responsibility onto my little brother while I rotted in the dust." My brain tells me to stop, but words keep coming out of my mouth. I feel a boiling sensation in my chest the more I talked.

"Did them ignoring you frustrate you?"

"What do you think? I had no control over during the first seventeen years of my life. Study every day. Get perfect scores. Get into a good university and then apply to medical school. All while I was sick. It's not until after I suffered another heart failure, they finally drop me. You think I would be relieved. After all, I finally get the freedom I want, but only because they stopped caring. I had full control of my life, but I had no idea what to do with it after years of having almost no control. They never cared. They just wanted one of us to take over the hospital."

I feel my voice getting sharper and angrier. But the words won't stop.

"Have you talked to Kyouji? The only reason he even got involved with me because of the tremendous pressure they put on him. He tried to escape the real world by going into the virtual one. He came up with the idea to become Death Gun once he couldn't find any way to vent out his misplaced frustration. And now look. We're both in a mental hospital. And they haven't even contacted us once."

By the time I finished ranting, I felt out of breath. Geez. How embarrassing I must have looked. Even if I tried to keep myself as calm as possible, my face must have been contorting into all sorts of shapes. Ha ha ha. I have a lot of issues, don't I?

"I see," scribbles something onto his clipboard again, "But what makes you think your parents haven't tried to contact you or your brother?"

I paused for a bit. It's true that there was no way of me knowing if they tried to get in or not.

"They tried to visit the two of you, but since we're still heavily monitoring your mental state, we cannot allow any visitors."

..They tried to visit us? Ha. Probably to scold me for ruining their reputation or for being a negative influence to their 'good' son. I can't imagine them really caring for somebody like me. There's no way I can imagine them actually caring for me. If anything, they're probably just here to see Kyouji.

"Your parents do care about you, but they don't know how to communicate it," puts down his clipboard and puts his hand on my shoulder, "Shinkawa-kun, I understand how hard it must be; to feel abandoned. How hard it must be to put faith in your mother and father again after being abandoned the first time."

I look down at the floor. Am I really supposed to believe that they were just ignorant of all the stress they were putting on us? That they conveniently didn't see any stress from Kyouji or me?

"...I don't want to talk about my parents anymore," I said sharply.

"...That's fine. We can always talk about this another time. Why don't you tell me more about your friend?"

...At this point, I'd rather talk about her anyways. At least, when I think of her, I can remember good memories.

"Rin is... nice and considerate. She thinks a lot about others. She's shy and gets embarrassed easily. Heh. One time, I caught her roleplaying as one of her characters from an old styled MMO we used to play. The ones that didn't use the NerveGear. She begged me not to tell anybody."

I twiddled my thumbs when recalling this moment. Her face was really red that one time. When I touched her, her face was really hot and she swatted my hand away from embarrassment, burying her face in her arms.

"She's smart...and pretty... and fun to be around with..." I feel a smile forming on my face as I indulge in my fond memories, "We would play old video games together. She wasn't good at it. All of her characters had terrible stat distribution because she thought they should all be well rounded. That if she didn't put any points into Intelligence, then her character would be stupid instead of just having low magic stat. But at the end of the day, we would both have a lot of fun together... Whenever I got sick, she was with me to give support. Even when I stopped going to school, she would drop by at least once a week to check up on me. Asking me when I would come back. She's everything I could ask for in a..." my voice trails off.

"How do you feel about her?"

I felt my heart pound.

"...I don't really know." I lied. This was probably one of my most half-assed lies, to be honest.

"Did you love her?"

He read me like an open book. It's not like it wasn't obvious to begin with though. I'm a 19 year old shut-in who's only friend is a cute girl. What else could have happened?

"Yeah," my mouth gets dry, "I did. I still do."

"I see," he jotted down something onto a sheet of paper, "Does she know?"

"No. I never got the chance to tell her."

"Not even after the SAO incident?"

I shook my head.

"She went to study abroad after that. While I was pissing my time away in SAO, she was still a student. She graduated high school a year ago and had been overseas since then, only coming back during breaks."

"Did you ever plan on telling her when she came back?"

"After I created Sterben...after I started playing GGO... it slipped my mind. I started to forget about her. Like how I did when I was trapped in SAO."

Dr. Minamoto pauses for a moment. He pulls a new sheet of paper and places it on top of his clipboard, his pen hovering above.

"What do you mean by, 'like how I did when I was trapped in SAO'?"

"..."

I never really considered it. Well, that possibility exists, but I never really though I would be one of those people.

"Did you forget about your family and friends when you were trapped?"

"...Heheheh," I chuckled, "Escapism, right? You probably thought I became so immersed in the real world, that I could no longer tell the difference between that and the virtual world?"

"You're very bright, Shinkawa-kun," Minamoto begins scribbling something onto the board again. It's starting to piss me off how frequent he does it. "Escapism is one of the theories we had to explain for you and your brother. But I think there is more underlying problems than just that."

"Yeah, I get it. Mommy and Daddy issues. A one-sided crush. Being born in a shitty body. Being stuck in a death trap for two years. Probably all symptoms for a lunatic, right?"

"Not particularly. The original intent was to help you get better, not diagnosing something we already had a consensus on. Shinkawa-kun. Please believe me when I say that I want you to get better."

"But why?"

"I believe that you already know the answer. Why don't you tell me?"

Ugh. I hate pretentious rebuttals like that.

"Because it's your job, obviously."

"Well, why do you think this is my job?"

"B-because..." My lips that were so eager to talk about my home life now struggled to find the right words. Hell if I know why you became a therapist. Either way, I have to think of some kind of answer, "Because...you...think people can get better?"

"Yes. I do. Now let me ask you. Do _you_ think you can get better?"

Not really. If I'm going to be honest with myself, then I don't think I can. I'm a whole bundle of messes wrapped into one person. I remember the excitement when I trailed people without them knowing in GGO. The rush I felt when I killed a person in SAO. That thrill of watching people when they're at their most vulnerable. I felt good. I felt powerful. ...It was like I was always broken. You can't fix something that was broken to begin with.

"Let me rephrase that. Do you _want_ to get better?"

...I'm not sure if I can. I know that what I did, what I do for fun is wrong. But it feels as if nothing else really excites me the way those activities do. I like to see people hurt. To see them suffer- like some sadistic asshole who gets off on people's pain. I have never felt any other rush as exhilarating as that, and I don't want to give up that feeling of pure ecstasy. If they let me out of here as I am now, I know I'll just revert back into the same person I was four months ago. But if this man can give me drugs or some kind of magical surgery to make me into something remotely normal, then I'm willing to try.

"...Yeah." My voice cracks a bit. Ugh. How embarrassing I must have sounded.

"And that's the first step of getting better, Shinkawa-kun. To admit that you need help," he looked up to me, eye to eye and gave me a smile, "And I'm proud of you for doing that."

I grit my teeth, holding back the waterworks as hard as I can. I'm not going to let anybody see me crying like some goddamned pansy because some hack gave me a compliment. I tilt my head and give a slight nod.

"Thanks."

Dr. Minamoto turns his clipboard around and pulls up and empty sheet of paper.

"...As of now, we still can't allow physical visitors, but we can allow you to interact with them using the AmuSphere. I can schedule an appointment with your friends and family. I think they need to hear your side of the story as well."

"...I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk to my parents yet."

Just thinking about them makes me feel ill. Even though I have some understanding on why they treated us like they did, I can't bring myself to forgive them. Not yet, anyways. If anything, I'd probably try to kill their virtual selves instead of actually talking to them. I might not be strong in the real world, but I am in the virtual one. My reaction time would be quick enough to probably strangle one of them to death before somebody pries me off or disconnect them.

"That's fine. I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to."

"...Wait. Do you think..." I wasn't sure if I was making the right choice here. Part of me really wanted to see her, to clear the air so we could go back to our previous relationship. But another part of me-the cowardly, meek part was too afraid to think of what she would think. Before that part of me could break my chain of thought, my mouth already began to move. "Could you schedule an appointment with Rin Yukimura?"

The doctor ponders, staring at the bright ceiling before sighing.

"...I can try but I cannot promise you that she'll come," He scribbles something down on the paper. Probably her name or something, "But we can't bring her here without consent."

...This probably meant that she made no attempts to contact the two of us. I don't even know if she's knows about the Death Gun incident. Hell, I don't even know if she's back from abroad. But... I do want to see her. If not me, then Kyouji. Heh. I wonder how he's doing. Hopefully better than me.

"Can you try anyways?"

"...Okay, I'll try."

Dr. Minamoto underlines a few words on his clipboard. He gets up and bids me goodbye. I bow back to him.

 _Clack_. The door closes shut.


End file.
